UFC San Antonio - Vera vs. Sandhagen: Moves to Remember

For those training in the sport of MMA, here are several technical moves that UFC fighters used to press the action this past weekend. Learn from the pros in action.

Illustration by Chris Rini

UFC on ESPN: Vera vs. Sandhagen (also known as UFC on ESPN 43) took place this past weekend on March 25, 2023, at the AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas featuring a highly anticipated main event that did not fail to deliver.

Cory Sandhagen executed a masterful MMA game-plan and took a tough Marlon Vera to school for five consecutive rounds.

The game-plan for Sandhagen was to stay elusive and use a diverse set of attacks in order to keep his opponent guessing. Vera was a bit too patient and this allowed Cory to establish his high-paced rhythm. And if you know anything about the fighting game and life itself, they are both all about rhythm and establishing your pace instead of trying to play catch up.

"Chito" tried to catch up in the later rounds but this was not enough as Sandhagen was always in the game mixing things up.

This was a great performance by Cory and we will analyze several techniques from this fight below.

In the co-main event, Holy Holm overwhelmed Yana Santos who was always a step behind. While this was a rather uneventful fight there were other fights on this card that I really enjoyed from a technical standpoint.

One of them was Albert Duraev's split decision win over Chidi Njokuani. The fight was close in my book but I have no problem with Duraev getting the win. I really enjoyed Duraev's ground control clinic in the first round and Njokuani's kicks.

Finally, flyweight talents Andrea Lee and Maycee Barber fought hard and at an incredible pace for 15 minutes, illustrating how exciting this weight division can be. This fight had it all, including some great takedowns.

This was an overall entertaining event but keep in mind that this is not a complete fight breakdown of the card, but an analysis of specific techniques. These techniques are successful because they rely on solid concepts of the MMA game and as such can be trained and incorporated in a fighter’s arsenal. Such moves can also help MMA fans appreciate the science behind our exciting sport. It must be noted that all techniques below have timestamps so you can easily locate and study them on UFC Fight Pass.

That being said let’s examine how UFC fighters got the job done this past weekend. This is UFC on ESPN: Vera vs. Sandhagen: Moves to Remember

Daniel Pineda vs. Tucker Lutz

Technique #1

Description: Daniel Pineda goes for a right spinning back kick followed (wisely) by a spinning back fist (photos 3-6). Tucker Lutz is able to pull back just enough so he doesn’t get hit and delivers a series of punches: left hook, right hook to the body, left hook. This is a great counter against a spinning attack as opponents are temporarily out of balance at the end of the technique and thus unable to defend correctly.

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